The Day of Meaningless Epic Decisions or How We Survived NYC

byStephanieonOctober 30, 2009

Yesterday, Kyle and I made an impromptu trip to NYC. There wasn’t really a reason, other than that we had the day off, and we could. Going into it, we knew that it wasn’t the best day to make the trip; it was supposed to rain all day, and seeing as we didn’t decide to go until 11:00 the night before we didn’t do much preparation. But, caught up in all the excitement, we just had to go. Because we could!

It ended up being a day of fateful decisions. Decisions that at that moment, didn’t seem very big or important, but later affected us, for good or bad, in a big way.

Decision: When Kyle turned to be as we were getting out of the car and asked if we should bring the umbrella, and I looked at the heavy mist outside and said, “Nah, it’s not really raining. Besides, you’ll just make me carry it.”

Consiquence: That heavy mist? Turned into more of a torrential rain by the time we got off the train. Minutes into our half-mile trek across Central Park we were soaked. I kept telling myself that we’re made of tougher stuff, that a little rain can’t hurt us. But it did make for reaaally wet socks.

Decision: “We turn left here, and the Met should be be just ahead on the right.”

Consequence: What Kyle should have said was, “We turn right here.” Unfortunately, he didn’t realize his mistake until we were five blocks in the wrong direction, and my socks were soggy. There were a few minutes, (or twenty,) when I contemplated pushing him in front of a bus, but I refrained.

Decision: When we finally got to the Met, we were soaked, but also starving, so we decided to stop at a hot dog stand outside of the Met before we went it. As we stepped up to the stand, I noticed that there was one down the way that sold gyros. We immediately abandoned the hot dog stand and bought gyros, wrapped in tin foil. We huddled behind the trash can next to the building, under the overhang and ate our lunch.

Consequence: I was so dripping wet that I didn’t happen to notice that my arm was growing wetter and wetter. But it wasn’t from rain water; turns out it was wet from the lamb grease dripping down my hand. It dripped all the way to my elbow, and soaked the silk lining of my coat. For future reference? Lamb grease doesn’t wash out of coats very well, at least not when you’re scrubbing it with a wet paper towel in a crowded women’s bathroom. But on the up-side, I got to smell like meat for the rest of the day. In other news, the smell of lamb now makes me nauseous.

Decision: Because I’d been to the Met twice before and Kyle’d never been, I let him take the reins on this one. Going over the map of the museum, we went over some the highlights that we wanted to see, but we agreed to skip the Egyptian art exhibit. We did, however, decide to pop into the large sun-lit room housing the Temple of Dendur; it was just too amazing to ignore.

Consequence: Not so much consequence, but coincidence. As we left the exhibit, I glanced one more time over my shoulder at the temple. As I did, my eye was suddenly caught by a group of people standing across the room. It was some acquaintances from college who are now living in the city. They are the only four people that we know in that entire city, and there they were, standing in the same room at the same moment.

After that, things pretty much calmed down. We wandered the museum for hours, admiring art and discussing what we saw. (For the future? I don’t care what you say, Modern Art Exhibit, a florescent light tube bolted to the wall is not art. Not.) We didn’t take any pictures inside, because I refuse to be one of those annoying asshats who stood in front of me so they could have their picture taken with the art, but we took a picture outside the museum. (Because no one’s trying to admire the intricate details of that.)

We went to FAO Schwartz, the famous toy store, and divided our time between ogling the ceiling, which was covered in LEDs, and playing with toys that were far from age appropriate.

Becuase really? THOSE are our toys.

My real moment of weakness was in the candy section, which featured countless varieties of gummies in so many, many forms. I behaved myself, and only indulged in a bag of cherry-cola bottle gummies, but had Kyle given me my wallet back it could have been embarrassing. We also did the obligatory walk down to Time Square and Rockefeller Center, as well and the traditional browsing of the seedy NYC camera and gift shop. Then it was dinner and back on the train. When we finally collapsed into bed around 2am, I swear, that bed has never felt so delicious.

For our first impromptu trip to the city, we consider it a successful one. No one was mugged, no one was killed, and we willingly got into the same bed at the end of the night.

But next time we go to the city, the fates of the city will keep their damn hands of our trip!

Your critique of Modern Art is why I love it so much. If I know an art museum houses modern art, I HAVE to see it. There’s a museum in Baltimore where one of the modern art pieces is just a sink hanging on a wall. No joke. And it’s called, “Inverted basin” because it’s hung strangely. There’s also a giant black zipper going down a canvas. It’s called… can you guess? Black zipper.

Sounds like your day was wet… but a lot of fun. So it basically sounds like a Girls Gone Wild video.

On my trip to NYC, one of the days was cold and wet and it was so awful. We rode around on one of those city tour buses, huddled against the wind, and barely taking note of anything around us. For a city where walking is the norm, rain is so not cool.